500,000 User Accounts on Google+ Under CyberAttack, Google to Shut Down its Social Network

Google will shut down the  consumer version of its online social network Google+ after revealing that private data from up to 500,000 users  have been exposed by a bug that was present for more than two years in its systems.

The bug allowed app developers for Google to access profile information from users that were not marked as public.

The data which could be accessed included the name, email address, occupation, gender and age of a user. In a blog post, the US internet giant said that it had discovered and patched the leak in March of this year and added that it had no evidence of misuse of user data.

The company further stated that Google+ had failed in achieving “broad consumer or developer adoption,” adding that the network “has seen limited user interaction with apps.”

Notably, the announcement came in the wake of a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report stating that in order to avert any scrutiny from regulatory authorities, Google did not reveal a security bug that affected hundreds of thousands of Google+ accounts, CNN reported.